Edouard Duval-Carrié: Endless Flight

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Edouard Duval-Carrié: Endless Flight

Located on the island of Hispaniola, the site of Columbus’ first landing in what would be known as the Americas, Haiti is known for its turbulent history, its religious culture that intermingles Christianity and Voudou, and its visual artists, whose work captures the country’s vitality and volatility. Edouard Duval-Carrié, one of the foremost Haitian artists working today, makes paintings and sculptures that translate Haitian culture into modern terms.

His multi-part altarpiece, Endless Flight, created at the time of increased migration of Haitians to the United States, casts central Voudou deities, or lwa, as modern figures: a superhero, a stripper and a GI. The central wall of the altarpiece, whose form echoes that of a Catholic church, is accompanied by seven freestanding or floating assemblages referring both to the migration of colonists and slaves to Haiti and to the migration of Haitians to the United States and other countries, fleeing the political oppression and poverty of their homeland.

Endless Flight was acquired by the Figge with the generous assistance of multiple donors. Its installation in the fourth-floor gallery will include a selection of recent paintings by Duval-Carrié that continue his dialogue on the history of colonialism in the Americas.

Born in Haiti, Duval-Carrié moved to Puerto Rico as a child, when his parents fled the Duvalier regime. He studied at Loyola College in Montréal and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, and now lives and works in Miami. His first exhibition was held at the Centre d’Art in Port au Prince, which helped launch the careers of some of Haiti’s most renowned painters and sculptors. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions worldwide, including at the Figge in 2005. The Figge was the first museum to acquire his work, and his portrait of Dr. Walter Neiswanger, founder of the museum’s Haitian collection, is on view in the museum.

This exhibition will be on view September 16, 2017-February 4, 2018.

Sponsored by Brian and Diana Lovett, and Barbara Leidenfrost in memory of her husband, Oscar Leidenfrost

Edouard Duval-Carrié, Haitian, b.1954, My Life as a Tree, 2015, mixed media on alumi- num, Courtesy of the Artist